Fear

Duran was cut off mid sentence as the door collapsed inwards. Shards of wood blasted across the common room, embedding themselves in paintings and walls, Duran only just got his hands up to cover his eyes. The room, he could make out was bathed in an orange glow and he could feel the heat of what could only be flames emanating from the door. However, the heat subsided quickly and any shock that had overcome Duran subsided at the scene before him. Angela, his Angela, lay slumped against the wall opposite the door.

Fury overtook Duran. He rushed to the door and saw, slumped in a way eerily similar to Angela, what could only be a ninja. He dashed forward, his rage driving him and lifted the man up by the throat.

"You will pay for what you have done," slamming the Navarrian against the wall was easy, so he did it again before throwing the man to the floor. Mounting him, Duran delivered the first punch to the man's jaw and he kept punching. Blow after blow hit the man's veiled face, reaching unprotected skin. Duran revelled in the feeling, revelled as with each punch he felt his frustrations disappear, felt his anger at what had happened to Angela disappear. And then something stopped him, he tried to continue, but his arm was being held back.

"Duran, you need to stop, Angela's alive, you can heal her," the voice belonged to someone he knew, but it was hesitant, almost scared. Duran turned to see Lise. Her eyes filled with concern, her face frowning the way only she could. She was scared. She was scared of him. Duran felt an emotion, deep beneath the surface, buried below his fury. The shock rose through his body until finally it hit him and then came the shame. Rising away from the ninja Duran turned and ran back to the inn, knowing that one of his best friends in the world couldn't stand to be near him.

All concern for himself or Lise was washed away however, when he saw the state of Angela. There wasn't a part of her that hadn't been burnt. Her skin, so fair, so beautiful had been burnt badly enough as to turn it black, bone piercing through the puckered skin at her knees. And the smell, oh light, smell of burnt flesh wafted into Duran's nostrils, it poisoned his mind, he wanted to scream. He couldn't think, he could barely breathe and yet he began to work, driven by the woman before him who should have been dead.

Duran knelt next to her, almost reverently and held his hands above her, being careful not to touch the charred skin. Closing his eyes he immediately drew upon the powers of chaos he had been granted, a power greater than that of the dead Goddess. The power flowed through him, touched every one of his veins and he felt a euphoria far greater than what he felt when he beat the ninja to death. Drawing on it deeply, more so than he had ever done before, he felt the blue glow envelope Angela, "Chaos Light!" he felt himself shout and then the euphoria was gone, replaced by a sense of longing as if he were no longer complete.

As he opened his eyes he found her, perfect as ever. Angela, his Angela, lay before him, eyes closed, but still breathing and beyond the lingering stench of roasted flesh there was nothing of the horror before to be seen. A part of Duran wanted to wake her, hear her voice after what had happened, but instead, gently, ever so gently he picked her up.

And then it hit him, the sound of the inn, his friends laughing with both joy and relief. Everything that he had instinctively blocked out hit him like a blow from a hammer. Emotions buried deeply away as he worked resurfaced. Duran wasn't a man to cry, but he could feel tears of relief welling up, blinking them away he just smiled at his friends.

"She's going to be fine guys, although you might need to quiet down, she needs rest," that brought about silence rather quickly.

Regardless, Kevin clapped his hand on Duran's shoulder, almost putting him off balance were it not for the Beastman's iron grip "How did you do it Duran? I've seen you heal people, but this was nothing short of," Kevin paused, finding the word, "miraculous!"

"It's this new power," Duran responded simply, "there's more of it so I don't have to ration it the same way I do mana, I could heal almost anything with this." Kevin nodded his head accepting the explanation but Hawk's expression took a dark cast to it. Lise, well she was too busy staring at Angela in what Duran could only think was pure awe. For a moment Duran wondered if she still felt scared of him, but he pushed the thought out of his mind. Angela needed him now, his own feelings could wait.

"As I said before though, she needs rest, I'll take her up to her room. It might be best if one of us stays in the room with her at all times though," Duran felt his smile waver, "if the guild at Navarre find out about her state, well, I wouldn't be surprised if we get more unwelcome guests."

"I doubt it," Hawk's expression remained stony, "if you send out assassins and find that they fail, then another attack is worthless. If your best couldn't hit the target then how are they going to do it when security is doubled?" Hawk paused, pensive for a second, "It wouldn't be beyond them to double bluff us though and I'm sure none of us would mind staying with Angela for a few hours."

Sometimes Duran felt Hawk thought too much, if someone was weak you guarded them until they were better, that was all there was to it. He turned to the stairs, "I'll take the first watch and meet you guys in three hours."

Climbing the stairs was easy, Angela had always been light as a feather and right now Duran was grateful for that. He felt hollow without the chaos within him and he a felt a weariness that gnawed at him, more profound than any tiredness he'd felt before. Duran didn't understand, but he needed to be strong for Angela. Even if she had betrayed him, even if she had tossed him aside for Hawk, even if he, in his anger had kissed Lise, she still needed him and he would never let her down.

Opening the door to her room and placing her carefully onto her bed, Duran covered the Archmage in her blankets before taking a seat next to her.

He was almost shocked out of his chair when he heard a voice, quavering, weak, "Duran?"

"Angela, you need to sleep, you were hurt," Duran said clasping her left hand in both of his.

He felt her squeeze before she fell back to sleep.

It had been a tiring week for Lise. She stretched slightly, adjusting the tight fitting breeches she had taken to wearing. Her shirt was embroidered with flowers so whilst she wore men's clothing nobody would mistake her for one. Yes such clothes weren't exactly what people expected of an Amazon queen, but they were a damn sight more comfortable than her skirts. She looked over at her more formal clothes, carefully folded in a corner of the room. Yes they were beautiful but in Navarre bare skin meant sunburnt legs and she did not want to deal with them right now.

Lise had come to her room to relax, after the day's events she just needed time to herself, to think. As she lay on her bed she took a glance around. The room was sparsely decorated, simple but functional, the perfect place to just lay down and think.

In a way it had been the greatest week of her life, the days following the fight in Rolante had felt magical. Rolante had never been the most comfortable place in the world, but it was her place, her home. She had enjoyed, however briefly, sleeping in her own bed, walking the corridors she knew. Perhaps more enjoyable had been finding the hidden corners only she knew about and then thoroughly kissing Hawk until they were red in the face. Yes, more magical than being at home was knowing the truth, knowing that beneath it all, beneath the womanizing, beneath the charming, handsome exterior was a man who loved her.

Lise had never been the most feminine woman she knew. You didn't become an Amazon by being a touchy feely type, but it was nice to know that someone cared about you that deeply. In reality a little part of her had always wanted to be the princess, whisked away by a handsome prince to live happily ever after and whilst Hawk wasn't exactly a prince, she felt a thief would do just as fine a job.

Sometimes she wondered how she had convinced herself that as queen she didn't have time for men or a relationship. Those past seven years, she had thought it was what she wanted, but now, she wondered if that Lise had been truly alive. Yes, Hawk was a distraction, but he was the exact distraction she needed. Even with their responsibilities, she knew they could make it work.

Alas, whilst her time with Hawk was beautiful it had to remain brief. They'd both decided fairly quickly, what with the tension between Hawk and Angela already that it might be best if the group heard about this after the mission was done. The Nightblade still remained unaware of the night Duran had kissed her in Palo. It had been a mistake, she knew that now. She'd felt betrayed and vulnerable and Duran had been there at the time. It hadn't felt wrong exactly, but when she had kissed Hawk, she knew for certain it hadn't felt right either. She'd get to the hurdle sooner or later, but right now, she didn't want to deal with unexpected consequences.

But keeping things hidden was the least of Lise's problems. The attack on the Angela had proven that thoroughly. Lise could feel the mission itself going pear shaped. They had had too many near misses, too many lucky escapes. It felt as if they were living on borrowed time.

Whatever they were fighting had proven cunning enough that they'd managed to slip ninjas into the city without any of Hawk's contacts getting wind of it. What was more disturbing was how the person behind this had managed to have his agents worm their way into the highest echelons of every kingdom. Not only that, but those agents had then gained the intimate trust of the mana warriors. Knowing what Samantha had been and what she had shared with the woman, secrets she had trusted her with. It made her feel sick to her stomach, and was made that much worse by the revelation that the traitor had managed to stick Eliza in the darkest of Rolante's dungeons days before Lise herself had arrived there.

It made her wonder about Navarre. Hawk must have been worried out of his mind. Not only for the wellbeing of his people but also because someone he knew had turned. Of course, getting the thief to admit that much was more difficult; ever since they'd known each other Hawk had instinctively kept his true feelings hidden, building up the charming roguish exterior until it was second nature to him. Even now, after seven years, several near death experiences and the man admitting he loved her, Lise still suspected she knew very little about how the Nightblade truly worked.

But even if she didn't and even if somehow he was perfectly calm, she still scared for him. Their plan for the attack on Navarre made it even worse. Hawk was adamant that a frontal assault wouldn't work. It seemed illogical to Lise, given that the two of them had taken down the entirety of Navarre fortress seven years ago, but Hawk claimed that the entire fortress had been redesigned since, making it near impregnable.

She wouldn't have been so upset if that had been the only problem, but if a frontal assault wasn't an option that left stealth. Unfortunately, trying to be stealthy in a fortress filled with ninjas so good that they could hide in plain sight was next to impossible. Or at least impossible for her, Hawk on the other hand, might be able to pull it off, which meant that he had to go in alone and Lise did not like it a single bit. Of course Hawk was capable and of course the reasoning was logical and she knew that it was the best plan that they had, but it still didn't stop worry from eating her up inside.

However, that wasn't her only concern, just her most personal. Unfortunately another man had her scared for entirely different reasons. She'd noticed Duran becoming more brazen as their adventure had continued, everyone had. But she'd thought nothing of it. After all, they were all under tremendous pressure and there were times, like when she'd speared that bitch Samantha through her black heart, that she'd taken some pleasure in seeing an enemy go down. But this was different. The Duran beating down that ninja wasn't the Duran she knew, for a moment when she'd stopped him and he'd stared at her, she had thought he was going to do the same thing to her. Duran could be described as a lot of things, stubborn maybe, bull-headed, but bloodthirsty was not a word she would ever have associated with the paladin.

The change couldn't have been natural. A younger more impulsive Duran had been nothing like this and the man was a King now. He knew that keeping his temper was important, he'd become well known for his levelheadedness. But what had elicited the change? And even if she could figure that out, how exactly were they meant to reverse the change itself? As seemed to be the constant theme of this adventure, the farther they progressed, the more questions that piled up with no answers. It was immensely frustrating.

And then there had been the attack on Angela itself. The Queen of Reason was recovering in her room at the moment, but the attack itself. That had taken, well, balls to pull off. Managing to separate off one of the mana warriors while the others were sitting not more than a floor away, almost killing her! Lise never let fear rule her, but watching the gruesome sight that had been Angela. It was enough to make the Amazon feel sick. And again, she'd been forced to watch on completely helpless as her friend had lay there dying.

If she was scared for Hawk now she had been terrified for Angela, her own weakness, inability to do anything had amplified that. And now she had to try to sleep in the knowledge that at any point a pair of ninjas might sneak into her room and attack her. Surely those two had to be some of Navarre's best, probably the best they could afford to lose. And yet, that thought didn't comfort her for a second.

Lise liked to think of herself as a strong person, but adding all of these worries to desert heat frying her hair and making her sweat like a pig, the fact that sand managed to get damn near everywhere and it made for a week that made Lise wonder how long it would be before she went grey. On the bright side, things could be worse, she could still be fretting about Rolante as well.

Trying to relax again, Lise was startled out of her bed when she heard a knock at her window. She was on the first floor, how was that even possible? Lise responded quickly, diving off her bed, grabbing the spear hidden beneath the mattress and the frame. Yes, she couldn't sleep with a knife under her pillow like a certain Navarrian did, but that didn't mean she slept unprepared. Cautiously she edged to the window. The frame itself was small, a man could just about squeeze through, but it was designed with the intent of allowing minimal heat in during the day and minimal heat out during the night. Anyone who tried to burst through the window and attack her would have no room to dodge when she threw her spear directly at them.

"Lise it's me!" The Amazon dropped the spear and ran to the window, "hurry up, my arms are killing me!" Opening the window out Lise laughed softly, partly out of relief and partly out of amusement as Hawk, clad in dark black, swung through the opening and rolled into her room. He had only a moment to look in slight surprise as she cuffed him round the head.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" she said in mock fury, "You scared the living hell out of me! I thought you were a damn ninja come to take me away!"

"Well," the thief replied, rubbing his head slightly, she hadn't meant to connect fully with that. "Well, I am a ninja," in a blink he was next to her, arms around her, looking down at her with his smouldering brown eyes, "And I have come to take you," he leaned in for a kiss which she all too happily reciprocated.

"On the second count," she said between kisses, "I am an Amazon, nobody 'takes' me."

"I damn sure intend to try," Hawk said, smiling as he crushed her to a wall.

Lise pulled away from Hawk's mouth and grinned, "And on the first count, you are not a Ninja, you are a Nightblade. I recall that when you were a ninja it was a disaster."

Hawk rolled his eyes in mock protest, "I was an exemplary ninja!"

Lise laughed, she couldn't help herself, "Do you remember the time at the Moonreading Tower, when we fought Lugar?"

"Oh lord here we go," Hawk had probably heard the story a million times now. She was fairly certain everyone in Navarre had heard it at least once. Not that she had had a hand in spreading it. Well apart from to Jessica when she'd visited Hawk in Navarre the first time and the barman in the fortress after she'd had a little to drink and Hawk's friend Kairen. Okay, perhaps she had been spreading it.

"Hawk, a newly raised ninja, wet behind the ears, sees Lugar, General of the Beast King's armies and reputedly the most powerful Beastman alive apart from the King himself."

"Please, don't go on," Lise wasn't sure if Hawk ever blushed, but this came goddamn close.

"Oh no, this is payback for all the times you complimented my backside in public," she wasn't sure if she was grinning harder.

"It is a fine bottom, I must say," Hawk said as a hand went there.

"Hawk, newly raised ninja," she continued, ignoring his attempt at distraction, "concludes that he can take Lugar out in a single hit from the bushes. Of course, ignoring the protests of the other five members of his party who all know the man is going to get his head kicked off." Hawk sighed, "He carefully, ever so carefully makes his way through the forest, darting from shadow to shadow as skilled as he can be, until he's within a metre of the general himself." Lise desperately tried to prevent herself from laughing, "Finally ready, he leaps at the general, gets his foot caught in a branch and falls directly onto the general's awaiting fist. Do you remember any of the rest Hawk?"

Hawk was staring at the floor, if he hadn't been blushing before, he was now. "Now Hawk don't be shy, this is me you're talking to," she teased.

"I spent the entire fight unconscious," he replied through gritted teeth.

Lise collapsed onto her boyfriend in a fit of unrestrained laughter. "You spent the entire fight asleep," she was in hysterics now, trying to speak; hell trying to breathe was difficult, "While Lugar was trying to kill us. You should have seen the look on your face. As you were falling, of course, not after Lugar punched you out."

Finally regaining a bit of her composure, she leaned back and looked into her beautiful thief's eyes, "No Hawk, I don't think you'll ever be a ninja."

In spite of it all, Hawk smiled back, amused, "Well tonight we finally have a room in a decent inn and I am going to make you pay for every single minute of that."

"Oh really?" Lise replied, sceptical. "You are aware we can't do, anything too," Lise hesitated, she loved the man and Goddess she wanted to have him, unrestrained; blasted Amazon vows.

Yet Hawk seemed unruffled, "Oh Lise," he chuckled forebodingly, "I don't need to break any oaths to have my revenge."

And that was when all Lise's clothing fell straight off her body in tatters, leaving her standing in her undergarments. Looking down, Lise felt her face heat. How did he do that?

Angela awoke to find Duran still asleep in her room. She smiled, looking at the Paladin with his head slumped to his chest. The oaf had probably stayed in the room watching her all night.

Rubbing her eyes, she tried to remember what had happened, but unfortunately was drawing a blank. She could remember her desperate flight from the ninjas fairly clearly. But things got hazy after she'd been hit by what she could only assume was a jutsu of some sort. In fact, from that point on she couldn't remember anything until she woke up here.

Orange light was streaming into her room. Logically that meant that it was probably dawn. She'd been asleep for close to eight hours then. Angela considered things for a moment. If that was the case and most of her exhaustion had been from the healing then she'd been hurt very, very badly.

Angela shivered, how many times would they luck out? They couldn't rely on their enemies being unlucky forever. Every time they seemed to get a little closer to the edge, it was only a matter of time before someone fell. Angela would never have admitted it to anyone, but for the first time since she'd gazed upon the Dragon Emperor she was scared.

Of course all fear was kicked out of her with the swift realisation that she was naked underneath her covers. Fear was replaced by fury, how dare Duran undress her without her permission! No matter how familiar they were with each other, him taking a peak while she was unconscious?

Angela furiously searched for her garments and then realised that they weren't there.

They'd been burnt to a crisp.

The fear was back in her, freezing her to her core. Angela could feel herself sink back into her covers. Of course, she'd been shaken back in Altena when what had appeared to be her mother had almost killed her. She could still feel the boot lancing into her in her nightmares. But it hadn't scared her. She'd been prepared for it. She'd known from the moment she'd planned their raid on Altena that she might die there.

Being attacked in an inn, where she was meant to be safe; that was different. The thought that she could go to sleep and be attacked by ninjas made her head ache. In retrospect they should have expected it. Their resistance to their aggressor's attacks had been pitiful. Every time their enemies edged a little closer to killing them and became a little more confident. She should have expected ninjas to attack the inn; it was something directly out of Navarre's playbook. Hawk probably hadn't thought of it because he'd been in power so long. His Navarre was a peaceful one, even if they did train as ninjas. An attack in the style of the old Navarre, the one headed by Bigieu, that was something that only she, having studied the last mana war extensively, could have predicted.

It was a mark of how tired she was that she hadn't. In fact, it was a mark of how strenuous their trip had been. Even with all the time on ships and to themselves, the entire mission had them so wound up that they never discussed it before an attack, simply because their objectives had had a logical pattern. They didn't need to think about the mission after defeating Dorothy and the apparition of her mother because it was logical to go to the Moonlight Forest next. They didn't need to think about where to go after beating Jorin, because Rolante was the next logical target. The problem was, they still had no clues. After Navarre what were they meant to do?

Angela pondered. This was her area of expertise. Yes Duran, Lise and Kevin knew battle tactics, Hawk knew a con. But she was the political one; she was the one who needed to figure out the puzzle. Somebody wanted something so badly that they'd destabilise the entire world to do it, but they still didn't know what.

Angela sat up in her bed, taking care not to make too much noise and wake Duran. She started with the obvious. The mastermind behind this chaos had pulled them away from their respective Kingdoms, apart from Forcena. The clue was in why Forcena had been left out. Koren had told them that Forcena had been bait to lure them away from their Kingdoms but couldn't they have just delayed them on Mirage just as well? So that meant Forcena was different for some reason.

Tactically, Forcena was landlocked and now with the bridge in the cleft out, it had no way of mobilising its forces anywhere but the Molebear Highlands. Apparently Duran had set workers on repairing it, but that would still take another month or so. That meant that whatever armies Forcena could bring to bear were isolated. If Forcena was used as the exception because their military might was purposeless, then it made sense that the chaos in the other countries was caused to cripple the militaries. Altena, she knew, could bring a small force to bear, but her mother's reappearance meant that Angela could only rely on her Royal Guard. The Beast Kingdom had nothing because of the fighting between those loyal to Jorin and those loyal to Kevin but Rolante had survived comparatively well. That said, Angela hadn't talked to Lise about her military forces, it could well be that Samantha had managed to coerce officers into dismissing units. In fact, that was fairly likely. They still didn't know the status of Navarre, but she could only assume it was the same.

So if their mastermind had disabled their military presence, then clearly he feared it almost as much as he did the Mana Warriors. That meant, most likely that, the intent was to field an army at some point. Military force wouldn't mean much otherwise. Anyone who had ever tried to catch rats knew that the size of the hammer didn't matter, if the plot just entailed a small group of people attempting to gain control of a mana stone, or some other magical object then an army wasn't really going to impede them any much more than a band of adventurers such as themselves.

If what she had assumed was true then, it meant that whoever was trying to kill them had the means to raise an army very quickly, or the means to hide one. Both were possibilities. There were plenty of places in the world that never saw a human eye for centuries. She'd been certain that was true of the Glass Desert. But there were plenty of ways to summon an army extremely quickly, gateways to the underworld, animating corpses; if something existed it could be animated and made into a weapon.

That line of thought died there. She knew what they planned to do at least, but why and how was still a mystery. But there had been other clues along the way. Duran was one of them. Only she and Hawk were privy to the information that Duran was giving away their position. It was his new power source. Angela had long ago concluded that it wasn't a new form of mana, no, when the old Goddess had died she'd been very clear that mana was going to die with her and Angela found it strange that the new Goddess would only grant power to Duran when the rest of her chosen ones were in such dire need.

But she knew her enemies had already derived a way to track Duran. On top of that they could cast magic as if nothing had ever happened. Angela didn't want to carry on, knowing what her deduction would mean. If she was right then as she had suspected when she'd informed Hawk about the problem, the power came from their enemies.

Yet, that again led to the same questions, how and why? With Duran, the why might be easier. He'd been more aggressive recently, perhaps they were trying to put him off-balance for when the inevitable direct conflict with the mana warriors happened. Angela frowned, that didn't make sense. There had been times where Duran had saved the mana warrior's lives by using his power. Why bother when the only purpose was to see them all die? There had to be some deeper reason, worth more than the life of any single mana warrior.

That left her with the how. There had to be an example somewhere of someone using magic without mana. Ninjitsu seemed the obvious answer, but that was different, they couldn't replicate a holy light. She herself had been unable to cast spells until the elemental spirits had granted her the ability, but she still relied on mana. And then it struck her. Koren; Koren had never been able to use magic, but he'd given up part of his soul to use it. Perhaps there was a link there. She had been certain Koren still required mana to cast, but that still didn't answer all her questions. Koren had allegedly given his soul to the Dragon Emperor. But how had the Dragon Emperor used it to allow him to cast magic. She knew that certain, darker magics required a human sacrifice, but she knew nothing of it.

There was something in this though. Pleased with her breakthrough, Angela challenged herself with another piece of the puzzle. Where were they meant to go next? The mysterious person behind this all had sent them to Mirage, then to Forcena, to keep them off balance and allow his forces to form a grip on their homelands. Yet he hadn't been too concerned about defending them. But that was because the objective wasn't control but chaos so he could raise his own army. She'd already established that. So where would the army strike? If they couldn't stop him raising it, they could be there for the first strike.

But with all the major kingdoms out of action, no target seemed better than any other. No target could offer any viable opposition. If the man behind it all was as wise as he seemed; he would go for the most dangerous target in the world. Angela grimaced, Rolante still had its amazons, but they were matched by the pure ferocity of the few Beastmen that remained. Altena probably wasn't viable and Forcena would be ignored due to its weak geographical location. But that didn't make them high priority targets. Angela knew she was close to the answer, knew she could do it.

And then the door slammed open, waking up Duran, almost causing him to fall out of his chair in shock. Lise stormed in, wearing breeches and a shirt that had been donned hastily, "Hawk's gone."

Angela cursed.

Response to reviewers

HawkofNavarre: Jesus this response has been a long time coming. I'm glad you liked Angela and the ninjas. I did my best to contrast the scene of complete peace in the inn with Angela's utter terror outside. I'm also rather pleased my punctuation is improving (Although after this break it may be back to its old awful state)

Shaneypooh: Hopefully your internet will be up for when this chapter went up. Regardless I'm sure you'll have plenty of time to catch up.

Dxkid: I certainly hope it did! No point in a cliffhanger otherwise.

Mad Lullabud: The chocolate is invisible! I don't know where it is, you just have to find it.

Enter-Metallica: Me not updating for over a year will be discussed slightly below. It feels good to be writing again though. I loved chapter 21, now looking back and when I was writing it. I don't focus on Kevin a lot, but at heart this story is about him and whenever I do write a Kevin chapter it comes together really easily for me.

Actual Rant

So you're all probably wondering what happened to me for the past year or so. The answer is fairly simple, university happened to me and I got lazy. Getting lazy involved me not writing during the holidays and university term is too frantic for me to be writing. The upside is that I'm now doing a Master's degree in Economics and go to university much closer to home now. Means I get a bit more time to myself and thus my writing. By the time Christmas came around I felt I had no real excuse any more.

There have been a number of occasions where I actually got work on this chapter started and then had it come crashing to a halt. I lost about 2000 words or so when my previous computer threw a hissy fit on me and died.

Looking back, my initial approach on the chapter was wrong. I had originally intended for this to be the chapter where everyone returned to Navarre. But I still had to deal with the aftermath of the Angela situation as well. It seems my lack of enthusiasm probably came from the fact that I don't think I can do justice to the Navarre chapter without an ENTIRE chapter purely dedicated to it. I also have clearer plans with what I want to do during the next chapter and it's looking like it will be my most challenging chapter yet.

Regardless, if you're reading this and somehow stuck with me through all of this, I'm amazingly grateful. I promised I would finish this and I damn sure meant that.

With all of that said. If you're a new or old reader, please review what I've done. I always find comments amazingly helpful regardless of whether they're good or bad and often they're what kick me back on track with the writing.

Thanks, free invisible helicopters located at the peak of Everest for any who review.